Fry's English Delight: The Complete Series

Stephen Fry hosts four programmes on the joys of the English language - as heard on BBC Radio 4, including Current Puns. Why does our language groan with the weight of puns? What exactly is a pun? And who, or what, is the Thief of Bad Gags?

Stephen Fry Presents a Selection of Anton Chekhov's Short Stories

"Chekhov is probably better known in Britain for his plays than for his prose. For many, however, it is his short stories that mark the high water of his genius. It might at first glance be hard for those not used to his style of narrative to see what the fuss is about - and fuss there is: for most authors and lovers of literature Chekhov is incomparably the greatest short story writer there ever was."

Saturday Night Fry

This six-part comedy series was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. Hosted by Stephen Fry, accompanied each week by Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, and a selection of guests including Phyllida Law, Robert Bathurst, Julia Hills, and Alison Steadman, the show takes the form of a roundtable discussion, interspersed with sketches that veer tangentially from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The Tales of Max Carrados

Exclusive audio collection. Eleven Max Carrados stories - narrated by national treasure Stephen Fry. Max Carrados featured in a series of mystery stories that first appeared in 1914. Carrados featured alongside Sherlock Holmes in The Strand magazine, in which they both had top billing. The character often boasted how being blind meant his other senses were heightened. This exclusive audio collection features 11 Max Carrados stories.

Sherlock Holmes

Ever since he made his first appearance in A Study In Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes has enthralled and delighted millions of fans throughout the world. Now Audible is proud to present Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, read by Stephen Fry. A lifelong fan of Doyle's detective fiction, Fry has narrated the definitive collection of Sherlock Holmes - four novels and four collections of short stories. And, exclusively for Audible, Stephen has written and narrated eight insightful introductions, one for each title.

Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem

Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his listeners the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality.

The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

Rescued from his beloved Macintosh, The Salmon of Doubt provides us with the opportunity to linger and frolic one last time in the uniquely entertaining and richly informative mind of Douglas Adams. For the millions of readers who expressed their grief and shock at his untimely death, this is a treasure; his final book and our last chance to see new work from an acknowledged comic genius.

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Series 5: The BBC Radio 4 Comedy Sketch Show

The complete fifth series of BBC Radio 4's award-winning sketch show, written by and starring the writer of Cabin Pressure. John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme has won a host of awards, including the 2015 BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Scripted Comedy with Live Audience. Written by and starring John Finnemore, this fifth series of the hit show returns with more witty wordplay and laugh-out-loud sketches.

The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language

The Horologicon (or book of hours) contains the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to what hour of the day you might need them. From Mark Forsyth, the author of the number-one international best seller The Etymologicon comes an audiobook of weird words for familiar situations. From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Why do we do the things we do? More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful, but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs and then hops back in time from there in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

John Finnemore's Double Acts: Series 2: 6 full-cast radio dramas

This is the second series of one-off comedies written by the genius behind the smash-hit radio sitcom Cabin Pressure - John Finnemore. The first series won the coveted Writers Guild of Great Britain award for Best Comedy. Each show is a comedy perfumed by just two actors - including (across the series) famous household names such as Martin Clunes (Doc Martin), Julia McKenzie (Fresh Fields) and the inimitable voice of Carolyn in Cabin Pressure, Stephanie Cole.

Cabin Pressure

John Finnemore (Dead Ringers & Mitchell & Webb) has written this brilliant new sitcom starring Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam & Benedict Cumberbatch. Cabin Pressure is set in a small airline business. The flipside of the glamorous world of international airlines.

Stephen Fry Presents...A Selection of Short Stories

Immerse yourself in a world where the illuminating Stephen Fry reads some of the more memorable short stories of our time. A brilliant combination of reader and writer come together in these short stories available on digital download.

Stephen Fry on the Phone: Complete Series

Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery, to the smartphones available today. There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet. Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible, and here’s how the technology succeeded in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended.

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: The Complete Series 2

The complete second series of BBC Radio 4's award-winning sketch show - winner of the Chortle Radio Award of the Year. In these six episodes, which make up the complete second series, you'll hear some moth-based lunacy, an awkward celestial relationship, a heart-warming tale of the days before health and safety, and how The Archers sounds to people who don't listen to The Archers - plus many other sketches featuring acute observations and wonderful wordplay.

John Finnemore's Double Acts: Six BBC Radio 4 Comedy Dramas

Celia Imrie, Alison Steadman, John Bird and Rebecca Front are among the cast of these six comedy two-handers written by Cabin Pressure's John Finnemore. The stories are: 'A Flock of Tigers'; 'Wysinnwig'; 'Red-Handed'; 'The Goliath Window'; 'English for Pony-Lovers'; and 'Hot Desk'. Also among the cast are Charles Edwards, Isy Sutie, Lawrie Lewin, John Finnemore, Simon Kane, Beth Mullen, Matthew Baynton and Jenny Bede.

The Princess Diarist

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved - plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977 Carrie Fisher was just a (sort-of) regular teenager.

Publisher's Summary

Is English an innately playful language? Are word games good for you? Do we divide into number and word players? And could Scrabble have been invented in any other language? In this special programme, Stephen examines many word games, and we’ll hear some familiar voices playing unfamiliar games - Sheila Dillon from 'The Food Programme' plays 'Font or Cheese' against miscellanist Ben Schott. Phill Juptitus talks about his personal word game habits, and we’ll remember the late Humphrey Lyttelton’s scurrilous account of Una Stubbs on 'I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue'. We’ll travel deep inside the mind of puzzle-setter Chris Maslanka and visit the Comedy Store in London to experience the lightning reflexes of some top word-athletes. Plus, we’ll examine an extraordinary claim - which the fashion for increasingly cryptic crosswords helped to defeat Hitler. Stephen Fry celebrates the fun side of the English language in this exclusive extended edition of a BBC Radio 4 special.